"Your Daily Tripod" reflects the personal Fourth Day journeys of its authors and editors. We are happy to have companions like you share in this project. Our prayer is that these reflections will invite and inspire your Fourth Day journey of Piety, Study and Action as much as writing or editing them inspires our journey and brings us all close moments with Jesus and our neighbors.

Blessed the man who fears the
Lord, who greatly delights in his commands. His posterity shall be mighty upon
the earth; the upright generation shall be blessed.(Psalms
112: 1-2)

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my
servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.” (John 12:26)

Piety

Lord, grant me the courage to
confess the sins I most fear bringing to You.

Study

I attended an event recently that left me a little
unsettled. The speaker, a priest, in essence said that if we hold back when we
go to confession (he most pointedly did not
use the word “Reconciliation”), we negate the sacrament’s benefit. I
started one of those internal monologues that amounts to asking how many angels
can dance on the head of a pin:

·What about things that you just don’t think are
worth discussing, that are one-time aberrations, not recurring bad behavior?

·What about behavior that should be confessed,
but it hasn’t risen to that point on your internal radar screen, that is, it’s
an excess or poverty of spirit that you don’t recognize yet?

·What if it’s something that you meant to confess
but you honestly forgot?

·What if it’s behavior that on the surface seems
totally confession-necessary, but when you consider the circumstance in its
totality (like the disciples foraging a field on the Sabbath) it really wasn’t
a sin?

Fortunately, at some point, the priest recaptured my immediate
interest with a story.

But as I read today’s readings, I became convinced I’ve again
made it all harder than it needs to be. While God loves us all to distraction,
if we squander opportunities to draw closer to him and become more Christlike,
can we be surprised if He pulls away? If we only follow Jesus when it’s
convenient, do we really think our lives won’t be the poorer for it?

I still differ with that priest on an incomplete confession
being of no benefit. If you’re quaking in your boots about voicing your
innermost wrongs, maybe that less-than-total reconciliation will give you the
courage to put it all out the next time. Maybe through an incomplete
confession, you’ll come to believe your harvest can be bountiful.

Action

What are you holding back from discussing with your pastor,
spiritual director, or group reunion? Try saying it out loud first in a place
where you know no one else can hear you. Make the self-damning words lose their
power.